The present invention relates to an image sensing and recording apparatus and method and, more particularly, to an image sensing and recording apparatus and method capable of sensing a single still image or sequential still images by performing image sensing operations in accordance with features of removable recording media for recording the obtained image or images.
A digital camera which records a digitized still image on a removable recording medium, such as a memory card and a hard disk card of PC Card Standard, has become popular with the advance of digital technology. As for image sensing modes of such digital camera, there are a single image sensing mode for recording a single still image and a sequential image sensing mode for sequentially recording a plurality of still images, and these modes are important as functions of a camera. Further, by increasing the speed for sensing sequential images to a rate of 30 fps (frames per second), it is possible to expand the utilization purpose of the digital camera to a camcoder. Furthermore, as a feature of the digital camera, an image can be recorded by arbitrary number of pixels per frame, compression ratio, and frame rate.
Meanwhile, there are various recording media conforming to the PC Card Standard, and their properties and capacities differ. Generally speaking, the speed for recording on memory card is slow and the capacity of the memory card is small, however, it superiors in enduring various environmental conditions. In contrast, the speed for recording on hard disk card is fast and the capacity of hard disk card is large, however, it is inferior in environmental endurance. Therefore, conventionally a user selects a recording medium in accordance with his/her purpose of utilization and installs it in a digital camera, then sets an image sensing mode and image sensing parameters in the digital camera.
When the user selects a recording medium on which image data can be recorded slowly and sets the digital camera to the sequential image sensing mode, there are cases in which sequential images can not be adequately recorded in a frame rate and a selected number of pixels to be recorded per frame. For example, some frames may be dropped and not recorded. Which image sensing mode and which image sensing parameters can be used are found as a result of trial-and-error efforts by the user, which is a considerable load on the user.
The present invention has been made in consideration of the above situation, and has as its object to provide an image sensing and recording apparatus and method capable of sensing and recording an image or images without failure right after changing recording media without troubling a user.
According to the present invention, the foregoing object is attained by providing an image sensing and recording apparatus capable of recording image data on plural types of removable recording media, the apparatus comprising: recognition means for recognizing a recording speed of a recording medium; available mode determination means for classifying image sensing modes which are set in advance into available image sensing mode and unavailable image sensing mode in accordance with the recording speed recognized by the recognition means; and available parameter determination means for classifying image sensing parameters which are set in advance into available image sensing parameter and unavailable image sensing parameter.
The foregoing object is also attained by providing an image sensing and recording method for recording image data on plural types of removable recording media, the method comprising: a recognition step of recognizing a recording speed of a recording medium; an available mode determination step of classifying image sensing modes which are set in advance into available image sensing mode and unavailable image sensing mode in accordance with the recording speed recognized at the recognition step; and an available parameter determination step of classifying image sensing parameters which are set in advance into available image sensing parameter and unavailable image sensing parameter.
With the aforesaid configuration, available image sensing mode or modes and available image sensing parameter or parameters which are determined in accordance with the recording speed of the recording medium selected by a user are easily recognized by the user, thereby it is possible to perform image sensing and recording operation without failure.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference characters designate the same or similar parts throughout the figures thereof.